6 Tips that every Scrum team should try

Scum is one of the most adopted and globally recognized agile frameworks for product development, and companies in all industries around the world has certainly adopted this framework. Read about 6 tips that every Scrum Team should try.

Because of its popularity, user groups all over the world are getting together in order to share similar interests, goals, or concerns and have regular meetings and communication. Such communities consist of many local groups in which London Scrum User Group is one of them. London Scrum User Group has come up with six tips for good Scrum – take a look:

1. Love your product owner

As anyone else, you want to be a part of a group – this also applies a product owner. Include the product owner in meetings and get them involved. A fully integrated product owner is possibly the most important thing you can do for success in Scrum because the product owner will spot early on if the stories do not match their expectations. if you work closely with your product owner, you can avoid going adrift and missing goals, and it saves a lot of stress when problems get solved on the first hand.

2. Run Retrospectives

It is very important to take actions away from a retrospective. You have to be realistic because you will never be able to solve them all – so ask the team to prioritize them. If you are doing the retrospective right, ask your product owner to help with prioritization.

If you find something very big at the top of the list, split in down to stories. Another opportunity is to pick one or two of the topics that the team feel strongly about, and turn them into stories. Most importantly, make sure that the stories are a part of your next game planning sessions and make it into the iterations. Implement the adjustments to the process straight away – try to experiment with it, and try to measure the impact of changes – you might not get the process right first time.

3. Ask your team to Pair Code

This is a technique where to programmers is working on the same task. Pair programming is a technique used to increase development throughput by maximizing review coverage, reduction in faults leading to increased software quality and less effort in downstream processes. In other words, two equal programmers work together to improve quality and throughput. However, do not be dogmatic, let the team decide how much work should be pair coded.

4. Setup self-directed teams

Who does not want to work with a self-directed team? - But how is the role of a Scrum Master in a self-directed team? It is very important that the Scrum Master does not tell the team how to work, or how to complete task – a Scrum Master does not plan or allocate tasks. The empowered team will be concerned to work out what the tasks are and find out how to finish the stories. The Scum Master’s job is to remove blocks and checking the quality of the team’s efforts. If the team is self-directed, a Scrum Master do not have to spot if someone is not completing their work because a strong team will sort out these issues.

5. Deliver what you commit to

It sounds like an obvious thing when you are at a job. However, delivering builds trust in the team and the process. Failing to produce a strong definition of done is a classic way to miss delivery. The definition should include the programming, integration, testing and setup tasks. In fact, every little thing in the process that is required to get the tasks ready for delivery. Another way to miss delivers is to fail demonstrate at the end of the iteration. You have the feeling that you are done until your product owner sees the work – and the product owner might request refinement. Again, it is important to keep the product owner close to the group in order to make the process painless. “Commit and then deliver what you commit to”.

6. Co-locate your team

Co-location is not putting everyone in the same office – no thanks. It is putting the team members next to each other in the same space or area. The purpose is to get the members of the group engaged in intra team communication – and that is not happening with a team scattered around an office. You should be able to turn around and join stand up meeting - and the closeness, speeds up the myriad of important messages that passes around the team.